Leading news website TSA partially blocked in Algeria
The TSA website has been inaccessible via Algérie Télécom, the country’s state-owned traditional Internet Service Provider, and via Mobilis, the state-owned mobile Internet provider, since 5 October.
Access to the news website Tout sur l'Algerie (TSA) was reestablished on the public Internet networks of Algérie Télécom and Mobilis on November 27, 2017.
Algérie Télécom did not formally answer TSA on the reasons for the blocking. In an interview for Radio Chaîne 3 on 9 October, communication minister Djamel Kaouane said his department was not involved in any blocking.
Bu TSA director Hamid Guemache has told RSF that the explanations provided by the authorities “are not convincing” and that he suspected a “political blockage.”
“The fact that TSA is only inaccessible via the state-owned Internet service providers suggests that is being blocked for political reasons, because it criticizes the government,” RSF said. “We urge the competent authorities to do what is necessary to ensure a quick return to normality and to guarantee media pluralism.”
Ihsane El Kadi, the publisher of electronic press company Interface média, said he was very concerned in a Twitter comment on 8 October.
Algeria is 134th on RSF’s 2017 World press freedom index.
